Business

Are You Tough Enough? Why ‘Grit’ is the New Currency for Success

We’ve become a culture obsessed with comfort, but success demands ‘grit’. Mental toughness isn’t about avoiding failure. It’s about how you respond. It relies on four keys: Fortitude (how hard you’re hit), Tolerance (how long you last), Resilience (how fast you bounce back), and Adaptability (how much you learn). This isn’t just a buzzword. It’s a trainable skill built on personal responsibility and separating your feelings from your actions.

Published

3 months ago

October 24, 2025

A.D. Greiner

Are You Tough Enough Why Grit is the New Currency for Success

We live in a world that seems obsessed with comfort. But success, whether in business or in life, is almost never comfortable. We’re all going to face setbacks. The real question is what happens next. Do you fold and stay down or do you bounce back?

This is where mental toughness comes in. It’s not about being emotionless or avoiding pain. It’s about how much you let a negative event change your actions.

A weak mind lets a bad event completely derail it. A strong mind experiences the same event but refuses to let it knock them off course. This “mental toughness” can be broken down into four key parts. Fortitude is how badly the event affects you. Tolerance is how long you can go before it does. Resilience is how fast you bounce back to normal. And most importantly, Adaptability is whether you actually learn from the failure and set a new, higher baseline for yourself.

**The Mental Toughness Model** This diagram illustrates a person’s “normal behavior” over time. When a “negative event” occurs (represented by the sad face), the behavior dips significantly, indicating they “act out.”

Tolerance: How long is your fuse? This is how much hardship you can endure before your behavior changes.

Fortitude: How low do you go? This is the intensity of your behavior change once your tolerance is broken.

Resilience: How fast do you bounce back? This is how long it takes you to return to a stable baseline after you’ve “acted out”.

Adaptability: Are you better or worse off? This is how your new baseline compares to your old one. Do you stabilize at a higher (better), same, or lower (worse) level of behavior?

**The Mental Toughness Trajectory (Ideal vs. Weakest)** This diagram plots “Behavior/Performance Level” against “Time.” It shows a series of responses to “Bad Things” happening. Each time a negative event occurs, there’s a dip in performance, followed by a recovery. The key insight of this diagram, however, is the *trend* of the baseline.

The “Ideal” (right side): In an ideal scenario, a “Bad Thing” causes only a minor, brief dip, and the recovery leads to a higher baseline. This person consistently learns and improves from adversity.

The “Weakest” (left side): Conversely, a less mentally tough person experiences significant, prolonged dips, and their recovery might only bring them back to the same or even a lower baseline. They struggle to grow from negative events. The overall trajectory of the baselines in this diagram illustrates the cumulative effect of mental toughness (or lack thereof) on one’s long-term behavior and performance.

The “Ideal” (10/10 Toughness): This person has huge tolerance (almost nothing bothers them), high fortitude (the change is tiny), high resilience (they recover almost instantly), and high adaptability (they use the event to get better). Life happens for them.

The “Weakest” (0/10 Toughness): This person has low tolerance (tiny things set them off), low fortitude (they spiral dramatically), low resilience (they stay down for a long time), and low adaptability (they stabilize at a worse baseline). Life happens to them.

How to Improve (Mental Toughness as a Skill)

Mental toughness is a skill you can develop, not a trait you’re born with. You can rate yourself on the four components and work on your weakest one.

To Improve Tolerance (Short Fuse): Practice not giving events power over you. Be more upset about letting your behavior change than about the event itself.
To Improve Fortitude (Spiraling): Recognize the moment your behavior changes and stop the negative snowball. Don’t let “bad get to worse”.
To Improve Resilience (Slow Recovery): Focus on getting your actions back to normal as fast as possible, “independent of whether you feel like it or not”.
To Improve Adaptability (Getting Worse): Ask yourself, “How can I let this bad thing serve me?”. Use the experience to change your behavior for the better.

You are allowed to feel frustrated, angry, or defeated. You are not allowed to let those feelings dictate your next move. In a competitive global market, the people, companies, and countries that can’t handle adversity will simply be left behind. Building this mental robustness is a choice. It’s the ultimate form of personal responsibility.

What do you think? Has our society become too soft, or is “mental toughness” just a buzzword for ignoring real problems? How do you build your own “grit” when facing a setback?

Join us on X and Facebook to share your thoughts.

Sources

American Psychological Association. “Building your resilience”. https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience

Duckworth, Angela. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. https://angeladuckworth.com/grit-book/

Fletcher, David. “Develop the Mental Toughness of a Warrior”. Harvard Business Review, 28 January 2021. https://hbr.org/2021/01/develop-the-mental-toughness-of-a-warrior

Related Topics:Business Canada entrepreneurship Grit High-Performance Mental Toughness Personal Responsibility Psychology Resilience Success

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Contact the Small Business Centre Call them and ask about the Starter Company Plus program immediately.

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The Ask Be specific about how much you need and exactly what you will spend it on.

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How Belleville Could Help Save Canada's Auto IndustryHow Belleville Could Help Save Canada's Auto Industry

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This is the energy we need to bottle.

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6 Predictions for 2026: The Death of Job Hugging and the Rise of the Portfolio Professional

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